Language Overflow

3:36 AM

The dictionary Dan Getz linked to above gives this as the pronunciations of Betelgeuse: \ˈbē-təl-ˌjüs, ˈbe-, -ˌjüz\. I'd say that one is exactly the same as "beetle juice" and the other is exactly the same as "Beatle Jews". — Damkerng T. 9 secs ago

I'm not sure if "exactly the same" is too strong, though I'd pronounce them that way.

Anonymous

That's not quite right because the latter has a different vowel in the first syllable

Anonymous

You might have missed it due to the non-IPA transcription

Damkerng T.

Oh, I missed that!

Anonymous

But in their scheme you can see the difference in ē versus e

Damkerng T.

nods

Better delete it. :-)

Not sure about the backslashes either. Perhaps it's their convention.

Anonymous

3:41 AM

I don't know

Anonymous

I appreciate them using something other than forward slashes, because that way you're not tempted to try to read it as IPA

Anonymous

Though really phonemic notation doesn't have to be IPA

Damkerng T.

It's another website that their "Listen to the pronunciation" feature doesn't work.

Anonymous

I'd prefer if we stuck to IPA as much as possible though :-)

Anonymous

D'oh!

Damkerng T.

3:44 AM

On my browser, I mean. :D

I guess it may work fine elsewhere.

Anonymous

All I have here is my electronic dictionary and my phone :-)

Anonymous

It doesn't have audio for Betelgeuse

Anonymous

I'm not sure how much variation there is in pronunciation

Damkerng T.

I haven't checked Wikipedia, but I have a hunch that Wikipedia may have a page for it, along with the pronunciation(s).

Wow, four of them! Betelgeuse (/ˈbiːtəldʒuːz/, /ˈbɛtəldʒuːz/, /ˈbiːtəldʒɜrz/ or /ˈbiːtəldʒuːs/)

Anonymous

But there might be more than just those two

Anonymous

3:46 AM

/r/? Really?

Damkerng T.

Dunno!

A typo on the page?

Anonymous

I wouldn't have guessed that one

Damkerng T.

[1] Simpson, J.; Weiner, E. (eds), ed. (1989). "Betelgeuse". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 130. ISBN 0-19-861186-2.

Anonymous

I noticed that Wikipedia's pronunciation listings can be a little inconsistent on occasion

tchrist

@snailboat Agree.

@snailboat Disbelieve.

Damkerng T.

3:51 AM

In any case, I find it a strange question coming from the OP.

The OP's English is not bad at all. They even answered a question about pronunciation! (Sounds - why does laughter not rhyme with daughter?)

tchrist

There is something completely backwards about every one of these questions.

There is no reason in the world to imagine that /ˈlæftɚ/ would rhyme with /ˈdɔ.tɚ/.

They sound nothing like one another.

And speech is primary.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Precisely.

tchrist

These questions must all come from people who have never heard English spoken in their lives.

It's like trying to learn about people by measuring their shadows. It isn't right.

The word is /ˈdɔ.tɚ/.

Or /ˈlæftɚ/. Or whatever.

I've just come from 4 hours of thinking in Spanish.

And writing, etc.

There, things are different.

Damkerng T.

@tchrist Welcome back to the land of English! :P

tchrist

Thanks. I'm getting slow to switch gears. It's weird. Like it takes me a seconds, maybe a couple minutes, before things seem right again in English.

There is a strong cultural sentiment in Iberia that when words change their pronunciation, that their spellings must also change to follow this.

Damkerng T.

4:03 AM

I just remember something funny about my friend who spent two years in Germany. On the first day he came back to Thailand, he wanted to buy some apples, and he couldn't recall the word for "apple" in Thai. It took him like five minutes before he was able to recall that the word for apple in Thai is also "apple". :-)

tchrist

That one would maintain an old spelling that doesn't reflect how a word is said is completely alien to them.

@DamkerngT. I've been there, honest.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

tchrist

Like "what's the English word for chocolate?"

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

How is apple pronounced in Thai? Does it sound very different from English?

Damkerng T.

4:06 AM

It's pretty much the same. You can try having Google Translate pronounce it for you if you're curious. :-) The word is แอปเปิ้ล.

Now I'm a bit curious about the spelling myself! (It's because we write tonal marks in words we borrowed from English only sometimes; and probably 10-20 years ago, most people seemed to agree that we should get rid of all the tonal marks from English words as much as possible, 'cause English tones aren't fixed like the way we would write them.)

So แอปเปิ้ล might've been officially spelled as แอปเปิล.

checking...

Ah, it's not in our official dictionary!

It seems like Apple Inc. evades the issue by writing all Apples on their website in English!

TIL: converting a screen captured as a GIF to a movie is much harder than the other way around!

Fantasier

4:28 AM

@snailboat People in generations before me or those who are less exposed to English are likely to conform more strictly to Thai phonotactics that doesn't allow /l/ at the end, producing /n/ instead. So apple would be /ɛ́p.pɤ̂n/.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I always pronounce it with the /n/ in Thai.

Fantasier

How do you pronounce DreamWorld?

(in Thai, that is)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... closer to English, I think, because it's relative new.

But I would pronounce Vitamilk as "wai-tah-mint" (the last t is absent).

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. I think it's แอปเปิ้ล, simply because it's been written like that for a long time.

Ah, perhaps it's แอปเปิล.

Damkerng T.

BTW, it's fun to prolong the last syllable of most words in Thai, e.g., /ɛ́p.pɤɤɤɤn/. :P

Fantasier

4:33 AM

lol

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier I guess it could officially be แอปเปิล, but I couldn't find it on the web.

Fantasier

Well, if an exception has not been made for the word, then according to the Royal Institute it would be แอปเปิล.

But I dunno, since there are many exceptions for words that have been written in a particular way for a long time.

Damkerng T.

nods -- The problem is I don't know if it's an exception or either spelling (and probably more) is acceptable.

Fantasier

It's quite confusing because they don't publish a complete list of those words.

Although I think the better way to do this is to go full prescriptive (because they already are) and make no exception. That's much better.

Damkerng T.

The problem is some words can be problematic. The famous example is โค้ก.

It's really awkward without the tonal mark!

Fantasier

4:38 AM

Well, โค้ก is a brand. And brand names don't have to care about standards. ไวตามิ้ลค์ and ไมโครซอฟท์ are incorrect according to the standard.

But I see your point. I think the standard says you can actually put tone marks on transliterated words, but only when it disambiguates.

Damkerng T.

nods

Fantasier

For example, you can put the high tone mark in เฟซบุ๊ก (that's the official spelling) because we have the word บุก.

Damkerng T.

thinking what if he spelled his name โนต เชิญยิ้ม... :P

Fantasier

Haha

โน้ต is one of the exceptions.

Damkerng T.

เฟซบุก could sound aggressive, even!

BTW, StoneyB tried to convince me to write a meta/canon post on How to Use Dictionaries on ELL. -- Anyone want to help or jam or share some ideas (or whatever!)?

I was thinking that it could mention a) what dictionaries can help, b) what is the right attitude to think of dictionaries, c) the technical aspects of dictionaries (like how to find out the PoS, countability, forms, etc.), d) some use case examples.

Hmm... probably we can lump a) and b) together. We can also add some extra tips (like using Google, taking advantage of special features of some online dictionaries, reverse searching, collocates, and so on).

Fantasier

4:55 AM

I think we could expand it a little to how to use reference books, with primary focus on dictionaries.

Damkerng T.

What are other books you have in mind at the moment?

Fantasier

Grammar reference for learners, for example.

And several types of dictionaries.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I'm not sure about grammar references on the web.

Fantasier

Oh, not on the web, of course.

Damkerng T.

The one that is safe enough (which I think of as a special feature of a dictionary) is English Grammar Today: dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar.

@Fantasier We could join force and draft it together!

Fantasier

4:59 AM

I would if I didn't have a lot in hands at the moment :\

Damkerng T.

It's probably not that quick. I think it may take a week or two. :-)

Fantasier

Finals just ended yesterday. And this break is going to be chaos lol

Damkerng T.

The post should include how to find phrasal verbs and idioms as well, I think.

@Fantasier Oh! It's your finals in December? I remember that it used to me in March.

Or Feb.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. We've changed the schedule to be the same as ASEAN, I think.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

When will the next semester start?

Fantasier

5:02 AM

Jan

Damkerng T.

Oh! Hmm... do you still have your summers? :D

Fantasier

Yes. I have somewhat sketchy plans.

Damkerng T.

installing iOS 9... doki doki...

Fantasier

Maybe go abroad. Or something.

But that's flexible.

Damkerng T.

Or having Songkran in Chiang Mai. :D

Damkerng T.

5:16 AM

Note to self: bilingual dictionaries can help in this kind of question: A term/phrase when we move side by side while singing

Damkerng T.

5:37 AM

> Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species.

> ell.stackexchange.com/q/74940/3281

This is a good example sentence showing why natural language processing is a hard problem. It's very ambiguous, syntactically.

But most native speakers would agree that it should be read only in one specific way.

And this happens automatically. No need to analyze anything. We just know it.

Now, to a language learner or a non-native speaker, this could be somewhat ambiguous. It's not totally ambiguous or as ambiguous as it would be to machines, but it's more ambiguous to them than to native speakers.

Which also makes a second language a hard problem for many of us.

Wow, iOS 9 Thai speech recognition is really good at trivial stuff, like things we would normally talk with friends, and such. But it's really, really bad at dictation on technical subjects!

I've never got คลังคำ right so far. It always give me ขำขำ.

โดยไอแซค อาซิมอฟ --> โดยไอ้สัตว์

!

Damkerng T.

8:04 AM

> ... chance that we are in an era where wealth is created without jobs raises very thorny questions about how that wealth will be distributed fairly.

> fortune.com/2015/12/04/silicon-valley-is-not-a-job-creator

Anonymous

You need the rest of the sentence before the ellipsis to parse it

Anonymous

Once you get to raises you mentally try to pop an empty stack :-(

Damkerng T.

8:20 AM

Ah, I wasn't really trying to analyze it. It was interesting to me, factually. Wouldn't you think so?

(Sorry for the confusion!)

Anonymous

Oh! Well, I can parse it if I add the to the beginning :-)

Damkerng T.

I copied it from my iPad, and I found that it was quite tricky to copy only that sentence. (It seemed to think that I wanted the whole page rather than the sentence!)

After trying speech input in Thai on iOS 9 for a bit, I think it's clear that the algorithm they use doesn't care how I say it as much as what it thinks I say.

Anonymous

Oh, copy and paste on iOS can be quite frustrating!

Damkerng T.

So, everyday language is quite okay, but dictation has a huge room for improvement.

@snailboat Indeed!

2

Q: "In auction" or "for auction"?

The house is to be sold in/for auction. Which preposition is appropriate? Is it in or for? why?

Preposition + article is really difficult for non-native speakers.

I wouldn't upvote the two answers. 200_success just dropped in in a comment and it's clear that his answer would've been better if he had decided to post one.

Hmm... is 200_success a male?

Anonymous

8:43 AM

I don't know

Anonymous

I'm a younger speaker and my idiolect is very permissive with singular they, allowing it in many situations more conservative speakers are less comfortable with, particularly in situations where the antecedent's gender is known

Anonymous

So to my ear, when people default to he when they don't know, it's strange

Anonymous

But people certainly do do that

Damkerng T.

Hmm... sold at auction seems to be the norm in corpora.

Anonymous

Sounds reasonable

Anonymous

8:48 AM

I would say auctioned off

Damkerng T.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

Nice chart!

Anonymous

You can subtract to be auctioned off from to be auctioned

Damkerng T.

nods -- Oh, you mean in the chart?

Anonymous

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

8:57 AM

A-ha! Got it, thanks!

Wow, up for auction is overwhelming!

Anonymous

Oh, that's a good phrase too

Usernew

10:08 AM

200_success is a male fish, I guess. In one of my answers, I wrote:
"For is not suitable: The house is to be sold for auction" can mean that the house is being sold to fund an auction.

is it correct?

or wrong?

or out of this world?

another quick question:

Why "yacht" is pronounced like "yatch"?

thank you. !_!

Anonymous

It's not

Anonymous

It rhymes with hot

Anonymous

/jɑt/ in AmE, /jɒt/ in BrE

Damkerng T.

10:23 AM

@snailboat It's interesting that we have two phonemes for it!

For me, they both sound like two flavors of the same phoneme.

1

A: on a burn (what does that mean?)

My guess is that he is referring to a "digital on-screen graphic" (DOG) which would sometimes referred to as a 'screenburn' (or simply 'burn') due to the fact that these would sometimes be used so consistently by production teams, that the images would be permanently 'burned' onto phosphor-based ...

Argh! His answer basically says the same thing as mine, but he has DOG and a good link!

I have only the subtitles.

Ugh! But his screen burn-in is misleading, I think!

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in

CopperKettle

Whoa! My bounty turned out quite effective!

Damkerng T.

Maybe I should retract my upvote.

@CopperKettle See what 50 points can make people do!

CopperKettle

Virtual points are powerful. (0:

Damkerng T.

After reading his answer more carefully, I think I don't exactly agree with him, though I think he's got the general idea right.

@CopperKettle Indeed!

CopperKettle

nods

BBL!

Damkerng T.

10:30 AM

See you!

Anonymous

10:53 AM

We can just call it the LOT vowel

Anonymous

It happens to be conventionally transcribed in different ways in AmE and BrE transcriptions, but that doesn't mean there's a phonemic contrast between the two

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm not sure if native speakers of the two continents think that it's pronounced differently on the other side of the pond. But the two flavors are really, really close to me.

Anonymous

11:16 AM

They sound different to me but I think they're the same phoneme in my mind

Usernew

12:56 PM

@snailboat thanks :) Actually I heard "yatch" from a professor at our university, he usually goes to foreign trips for teaching, and I heard very well. I looked at the dictionary and found it to be "yot." Strange @_@

But I don't understand the bit about "It's not"

Can you tell me, please? :)

Damkerng T.

Snailboat answered your question: Why "yacht" is pronounced like "yatch"? "It's not (pronounced like that)."

Usernew

1:34 PM

I thought he answered my previous question @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

2:55 PM

1

A: Past progressive for a finished event

Past perfect continuous often shows the cause of something in the past. So in order to use it, the first lines should look like this: — It was Friday, the first day of our skiing holiday, and my friend Jason and I were tired because we had been skiing down the mountain together. — The answ...

sigh

CopperKettle

I must say, however, that a NES would not commonly say either That's a pity or It's a pity in this general context. The construction with it's is almost followed by a that clause giving more information (It's a pity that you couldn't make it) and That's a pity is not something I would say or recommend to a learner to express a softer form of disappointment. Both phrases easily come to express sympathy with your interlocutor's situation. — NES 6 mins ago

it's a pity that I posted that answer in the first place

(0:

sigh

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Hmm... That makes me think that NES is not an Englishman.

I find the requirements set by you to be too constraining for me to offer germane suggestions, and, anyway, it seems your happy with pity. — NES 14 mins ago

I'm not sure in what dialect the your mistake is more common.

Usernew

hello @DamkerngT. \o/

Damkerng T.

Um... hello! (But we just talked to each other a few hours ago!)

Usernew

who? me?

I mean, us?

I am here for a quick question

Damkerng T.

3:05 PM

You're Usernew, right?

Usernew

just finding an image

No, I am someone else :D

but, wait

Damkerng T.

Oh, but you look Usernew enough to me. :D

Usernew

when did we talk today?

that's okay :(

Damkerng T.

You told me that I might've been wrong about snailboat's reply.

Usernew

oh, yeah :(

Damkerng T.

3:06 PM

:D

Usernew

How do we say that? There are three dots on/in the radar

?

three targets under the radar.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I'm not sure. I haven't used radar often enough. :D

Usernew

Me neither :D

else I would have known :P

Damkerng T.

I think it should be on or in. I feel okay with either, but not under.

Usernew

Should this question be closed?

Damkerng T.

3:08 PM

What question?

Usernew

Under the radar would be correct if we are not talking about the dots, I guess

0

Q: "walks" or "walked" or "will walk"?

Can anyone explain me the difference between "walks," "walked," and "will walk"? Example: Martha loves exercising so she walks/walked/will walk everywhere she goes.

verb verb-forms

Damkerng T.

@Usernew It would mean something else, but I guess you know that.

Usernew

yes, that's what I mean :)

Damkerng T.

The OP could've added more about their idea to the question.

Usernew

I narrowed it to the verb forms, still not enough. another quick question: Is "biasness" incorrect?

Damkerng T.

3:10 PM

The OP is a new user, so please be gentle. New users need guidance.

Usernew

It was like a homework question before :D

Yes, I edited it :)

got 2 answers now

what's the time there?

Damkerng T.

It's an easy question, but easy questions can be difficult for non-native speakers.

22:15

What? We got two rather bad answers!

Usernew

yes, it can be. Some questions might sound silly to us, but hard for NNS

I can assure you being a NNS myself :D

Damkerng T.

I think our answerers overlooked something or maybe the question has been edited and they both replied to something before the edit.

Usernew

at least the OP will understand something :)

Damkerng T.

3:14 PM

Maybe they already know that.

Usernew

It was this before

ell.stackexchange.com/posts/74964/revisions

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see. It looks like the OP doesn't know the basics.

Usernew

I don't think so, because I edited it 20 minutes before, and they answered few minutes ago :D

Yeah, S/he doesn't :(

you don't sleep? @_@

Damkerng T.

I do!

Usernew

Oh, robots never sleep :P

Damkerng T.

3:16 PM

Sometimes. :D

Usernew

:D

Is "biasness" wrong?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... what's the full sentence?

Usernew

hmmm.......... :(

wait a sec

Any of the stackexchange site is no place for bias. That's looks like a work of a troll. Don't know who S/he is! @_@ — Usernew 5 hours ago

*that

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Putting aside the issue and focusing only on the language side, I think bias is fine. I'd say it's better than biasness in that sentence.

Usernew

thank god. :D

What's cooking?

Damkerng T.

3:20 PM

But the That's looks part is ungrammatical, BTW.

Usernew

yes, I made the correction

It should have been "that"

Damkerng T.

Huh? Cooking is cooking. I think you know what cooking is. :D

Usernew

right?

I mean, what's happening there? :D

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure about the context (haven't read the post), but I think I probably use this in the place of your that.

Usernew

correction: *That — Usernew 27 mins ago

hmmm

Why comments can not be edited after 5 minutes?

what's the harm :(

I think both are correct: this and that :D

Damkerng T.

3:23 PM

Not sure. It has always been like this. It was already like this before I joined the site.

@Usernew nods -- Agree. Just my preference. :D

Usernew

I found it strange @_@

@DamkerngT. Phew!

When were you manufactured?

Damkerng T.

LOL -- Too long. :D

Usernew

:D

Damkerng T.

It was a long time ago. I have no data. :P

Usernew

haha....Talking about cooking, Have to go cook something :)

Damkerng T.

3:25 PM

Have fun!

Usernew

Thanks! Good Night and Adios! /o\

Damkerng T.

Good night!

CopperKettle

3:43 PM

@DamkerngT. Just a typo, I see no reason for assuming a false identity in ELL SE. (0:

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Actually, I think for someone who's that careful about language, it can tell something.

CopperKettle

I'm not a doctor House. (0:

Damkerng T.

It'd be different for more casual users.

@CopperKettle LOL

I kinda miss that series.

CopperKettle

I haven't even got a cane (0:

@DamkerngT. Yes, a great series.

Jasper

5:19 PM

@Usernew There are three blips on the radar. If the objects were too low (in the air) to be seen by the radar system, they would be "under the radar" -- and would not appear on the radar map.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

1

A: I received "9" downvtotes in one minute? What happened?

Not everything deserves a meta post. There's a script at place that reverses this bizarre trend of voting. C'est la vie. Highly related posts on meta, which suddenly make me tired: Serial downvoting with pauses Serial downvoting not reversed serial downvoting not reverted Consistent serial ...

OK, lemme try to understand this.

People disagree with the fact that a script is running? Or is there voting based on something other than the post itself?

I must have made some fans for myself in meta.ELL. Hooray.

Good thing I'm too cool for the imaginary score to affect me. Or maybe I should go and ask "Does this answer deserve 2 friggin' downvotes?" Hehe

CopperKettle

Good evening, Muhammad!

I've learned that Kurt Vonnegut's brother was a chemist. (0:

Bernard Vonnegut

Bernard Vonnegut (August 29, 1914 – April 25, 1997) was an American atmospheric scientist credited with discovering that silver iodide could be used effectively in cloud seeding to produce snow and rain. He was the older brother of American novelist Kurt Vonnegut. == Early life == Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana to architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr (November 24, 1884 – October 1, 1957), partner in the firm of Vonnegut, Wright & Yeager, and homemaker Edith Sophia Lieber (d. May 14, 1944). He was named after his grandfather, architect Bernard Vonnegut Sr, co-founder of the firm of Vonnegut &...

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

5:35 PM

\o

> 11905

CopperKettle

His colleague became an inspiration for Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle"

StoneyB

Hi guys. Things is slow.

CopperKettle

Hi, @StoneyB! They sure is!

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir /ˈlæŋmjʊr/ (January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his "concentric theory of atomic structure". Langmuir became embroiled in a priority dispute with Lewis over this work; Langmuir's presentation skills were largely responsible for the popularization of the theory, although the credit for the theory itself belongs mostly...

StoneyB

Hmm ... you guys trying to establish ELL Chat as a branch office of Chem? Sorta like China piling up sand on the reefs?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I SWEAR IT'S NOT ME.

CopperKettle

5:38 PM

(0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Points at @Copper

CopperKettle

Kurt Vonnegut is a literary topic. (0:

StoneyB